All in the Past
by Rhianwen
Summary: Their wedding night wasn't exactly when he would have picked to find out about it, but the truth was, he just didn't want to know at all. AlexGina. Rated for themes of statutory rape. Previously titled Confessions by Moonlight.


All in the Past

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary: Their wedding night wasn't exactly when he would have picked to find out about it, but the truth was, he just didn't want to know at all. AlexGina. Rated for themes of statutory rape. Previously titled Confessions by Moonlight.

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, and if they're not laughing their heads off at me for this one, they probably should be. Oh, right; opening line shamelessly quoted from The Lady of Shallot, because I heard recently that writer's block can sometimes be solved by opening with a quote.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Two young lovers, lately wed_, twined together in a pool of moonlight and crumpled sheets, her head at his chest and his hand deliciously heavy at her thigh.

Into the warm, drowsy silence of his room, in unaccustomed disarray from a profusion of wedding clothes strewn impatiently about the floor, she makes a soft noise of contentment. He rouses from half-sleep and smiles quizzically down at her.

"What?"

She blushes – between all the eyes on her today and _his_ eyes on her tonight, it feels like she's been blushing most of the day – and replies.

"I'm so lucky.

His smile grows as he turns just enough to tip her over onto her back, and presses a kiss to the little hollow at the base of her throat.

"And why is that?"

She falters a little. Between the two of them, he's much better at discussing how he feels without sounding silly.

"W-well, it's just that...not many girls get to marry their first love. I wonder what I've ever done to deserve so much."

Storm-grey eyes softening, he starts to tell her that she's been sweet, and steady, and practical, and dependable, and adorable, and irresistable, and that's enough, but stops as something else occurs to him, and laughs.

"Come on, Gina, you've had other boyfriends, haven't you? I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm sure you loved them deeply at the time."

Her sweet pink flush deepens.

"No, I've never had a boyfriend before."

Smile stretching out into a full-fledged _grin_, Alex props himself up on one elbow. He knows quite well, from his position as her doctor if nothing else, that she's had...experience outside of marriage. Somehow, the idea of the madly blushing, silvery-haired little creature lying beneath him finding a decently good-looking man in a bar for the night – just to get that inevitably awkward and horrible _first time_ out of the way, you know – is so like her startlingly naïve pragmatism that he can't find it in him to even consider being horrified.

"A one-night stand, Gina?" A teasing kiss on the nose. "I knew you were a wild woman at heart."

A little hurt, she pulls back, frowning.

"No, Alex. I wanted to save _that _for the right person."

He sobers, a sensation of needling, ice-cold fear creeping across the fierce joy of her in his arms every night from now on.

"I don't follow, Gina. You told me at your first check-up that you had been with a man."

She hesitates.

"Well, yes, I have. It was...um, well, it was Dia's father." It's hard to admit, not out of embarrassment or shame, but because what happened with Mr. Gevora in Sugar Village bears no resemblance to tonight with Alex.

All those nights, lying still and trying not to do the wrong thing or make a sound, even when it hurt, sweat dripping from the Master's forehead into her hair, just another duty to make her exhausted on her days off, worse than scrubbing the pans but not nearly as bad as cleaning the bathrooms; they couldn't possibly be _more_ different from the fiercely burning ache of need as Alex moved over her and inside her, lips at her temple, breathing harsh at her ear, _please, love,_ one hand slipping between their bodies to send her gasping and writhing over the edge. Even if they both made the same noises and the same face just before that flood of sticky warmth. And even at that, Alex said her name and sweet things of adoration and love and desire; Mr. Gevora just bit down on her shoulder to muffle his noises.

She doesn't think he sees it as the same, either, with the way he's bolting upright, eyes wildly searching her face. When he's satisfied by what he sees, he pulls her tentatively into his lap, arms tightening when she doesn't pull away.

"Sweetheart, you should have told me that there was an incident of sexual abuse in your past. We could have taken this more slowly."

And now she does pull abruptly away, cups his cheek reassuringly.

"Alex, no! It was nothing like that."

He sighs heavily, rubbing his eyes.

"Gina, how old were you?"

"He never came to me until I was fourteen," she says, placating now that she's found out this is upsetting him. "I shared a bedroom with Grandma until then."

"A grown man using a position of power to entrap a fourteen-year old girl into a physical relationship _is_ abuse."

"He said it was normal," she whispers, choking a little at the anger tightening his jaw and making those lines around his eyes. Even if it isn't for her, she wishes she had kept quiet so she could keep enjoying him laughing and contented. "He said it happened all the time with important men, just the maid was usually prettier, but the choice was between me and Grandma, and he didn't want to risk breaking someone's hip."

"It was _not_ normal, Gina," he tells her quietly, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "He did something terrible to you. It must have been Hell."

She leans gratefully into his embrace, arms tight around his middle for fear that he'll disappear now that he's found out something he doesn't like about her.

"It wasn't that often. He was only home a few times a year. He had lovers in the city, but he couldn't bring them to Sugar Village because it might have upset Dia and worsened her condition."

"Did Dia know about this?"

"I don't think so," she replies into his shoulder, sniffling slightly. Somehow, with Alex looking at her like she's diseased and he's off to kill the man who infected her, the memories of those times seem a lot worse. Isolation from Grandma and Dia, spending her days achy and exhausted and her nights unable to sleep because she was sweaty and sticky but didn't dare get up to take a bath...but Grandma always told her it was silly to fret about things she couldn't change. "I didn't tell her, because I thought it might make her hate me the way she hated her father's other women."

He laughs, the sound breaking on a sob. Alarmed, she hugs him tighter, catching a teardrop with her thumb.

"Alex? Is this going to change things?"

_Is this going to change things?_ What is he to make of her apparently untroubled acceptance of a man's flagrant abuse of his power and her youth and helplessness? Can he ever be sure that it isn't the same thing with him, distaste but unwillingness to protest and risk her job? With a shaky sigh, he disentangles from her arms.

"I don't know, Gina. I need to think."

And with that, he's up from the bed and crossing the room to the door, tying his robe as he goes.

Shivering alone in the pool of moonlight and tangled sheets, Gina, who spent much of the day blinking away happy tears, buries her face in the pillows and gives way to a flood of misery.

----------------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: O-kay! This may be a one-shot, it may be a two-shot, but whatever it is, holy monkey, has Gina got a Tess of the D'Urbervilles thing going on here! Maybe it's because, as much as I love her, and as much as I hate Tess, they're fairly similar personalities. Gina just...you know, has human flaws, and even a little bit of common sense.

Anyway, I'm kind of leaning toward two-shot, because I really hate to leave it there, and writing bleak endings comes as naturally to me as tap-dancing to a fish.


End file.
